Works analyzing and listing tropes: How to namespace them?

On TV Tropes we have several pages about websites, books etc. that are dedicated to analyzing tropes and storytelling conventions. The Evil Overlord List is the prototypical example, but the other pages on the Books on Trope index also fall in this category.

These pages do not document a trope directly like e.g Big Bad does, but they aren't proper works either because they have no story and do not, for the most part, employ tropes. Thus they frequently lack a trope list despite being located in the work namespaces (where such a list is expected) and get cutlisted for being "stubs", even though listing tropes isn't the purpose of the pages we have on them.

In the past there was discussion about creating a Tropology/ namespace dedicated to hosting these pages, because they are on-mission but don't fit the remit of our work namespaces and sometimes get misplaced to other namespaces. Since a bunch of them was just cutlisted for lacking a trope list, I think it's high time that we have a general discussion on how to categorize these pages. In some cases, we need to ask ourselves about copyright; many of these pages we have replicate the external work in full. But I'd like to ask that this not become the only topic of discusison.

I'd be fine with having a Tropology/ namespace. I think we might as well have discussion regarding whether to make it now since it's come up multiple times in the past, and since we've had multiple other namespace discussions recently.

Edit: Though copyright issues could potentially be a problem, since as far as I know, the Evil Overlord List is the only one we have permission to host a copy of (I think Fighteer was the one who mentioned having permission when it came up on ATT when someone questioned it being in Main/, and it was ultimately decided to just leave it in Main/ since nobody in the ATT thread could agree on any other namespace). I suppose Evil Overlord List would be moved to Tropology.Evil Overlord List if we made the Tropology/ namespace.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 8th 2022 at 3:27:20 AM

Oop, sorry.

Edited by Kuruni on Oct 8th 2022 at 3:42:09 PM

I kinda don't think it's an issue, aside needing ZCE and plagiarism help. Unless a work that has Discussed Tropes only isn't tropable (which is another large chunk of Web Video).

While I do think it's an issue that they're all stubs, I agree that I don't think there's a need for a new namespace to deal with them. I think they would be fine if we add a trope list that focuses on "Tropes discussed in this work" as opposed to "tropes that are used in this work" since they don't have the latter. It would also function as an interesting way to compare our trope coverage on the site with theirs.

Any discussion on the framework these books use can take place on the Analysis page.

Edited by amathieu13 on Oct 8th 2022 at 5:33:30 AM

Problem is that the work page format isn't usually the best way to structure such pages. For example, Evil Overlord List cannot work in this form (nevermind that we'd testing the boundaries of the licence). And many aren't currently formatted like work pages, leading to the invalid cut requests.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Oct 8th 2022 at 11:48:12 AM

I think the proposal of new namespace is to confine those pages with their own wacky format like The RPG Cliches Game, The Fantasy Novelists Exam, and 45 Master Characters (for examples). They discuss tropes, but using their own system and format instead of ours.

Note that some pages in Books on Trope like Fantasy Encyclopedia, Fenimore Coopers Literary Offences, and The Four Loves that use our format. AFAIK, they're doing fine.

Edit:

Edited by Kuruni on Oct 8th 2022 at 4:52:08 PM

Not being formatted like work pages sounds like a valid cut reason to me.

Personally, I don't like the idea of rewarding those pages with their own namespace because they've done it so bad (that, and I've feeling that someone on the Villains Wiki will exploit it). But as noted in ATT thread, I'm fine as long as we make it clear they aren't work page. Even Useful Notes/ or Just for Fun/ is good enough for me.

Still, even if we move them to new namespace and keep their original format, most of them would still need complete rewrite to avoid Plagiarism. And I wonder if it would be easier than rewrite them as our standard work page?

Formatting issues are not in and of themselves a legitimate cut reason, nor have they ever been.

I think there is some confusion between copyright infringement and plagiarism, by the way. Plagiarism is when you are taking someone else's text without acknowledging that you copied it. Copyright infringement is when you are taking someone else's text without permission. Many of these pages aren't plagiarism because we are making it clear that the text comes from elsewhere. They can be copyright infringement if we didn't seek permission (as we did for Evil Overlord List) and the text doesn't have a licence that allows copying.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Oct 8th 2022 at 12:20:05 PM

I'm going from How to Create a Work Page. If a work page has less than three contextualized trope examples, which includes lacking a trope list, it's a stub.

For example, The RPG Cliches Game doesn't have the trope list, it has the entire work summary in the description, and thus not a valid page by our long-time standards. If someone can reformat it, great, but it's currently not a keepable page other issues aside.

The neighboring works in the index, Poetics and Silly Novels by Lady Novelists, look okay to me.

How to Create a Work Page is about work pages, though. Pages we host to collect tropes in the work they are about.

The pages under discussion here are not being hosted for that purpose. That's why I opened this discussion in the first place - the pages have the trappings of a work page, but they aren't the same thing, and the formatting rules for work pages are not always suited for this type of page.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Oct 8th 2022 at 12:39:43 PM

I understand now.

Well, if they're not for this purpose then I personally don't see the point of keeping them and would rather promote using Analysis/ more.

There isn't that many Books on Trope anyway, so I don't think it warrants a new namespace. JustForFun.Tropology can work out for now.

For the sake of both arguments I've made Sandbox.Tropology Candidates for now.

Why do you want to shoehorn this into Just for Fun? They are analysis of tropes and storytelling - that's the whole point of TV Tropes, not something we do a a bit of fun aside from the job. Nevermind that they wouldn't fit all on the same page.

Just for clarification. I brought up format issue simply because currently they're work pages, and by format I mean the complete absent of tropes list. As noted, I'm fine if we make it clear that they aren't.

Probably because some pages like 45 Master Characters have tropers listed characters using the page's categories instead of just being trope analysis.

Edited by Kuruni on Oct 8th 2022 at 6:03:13 PM

Useful Notes seems better imo.

I see no need to use any namespace other than Main/ for an index of Tropology/ pages. Main.Tropology would be sufficient. The indexes for Just for Fun and Useful Notes are also in Main/ (and that's the only parallel I'm going to draw between those two and a potential Tropology namespace).

Useful Notes is a namespace for describing Real Life subjects such as cities, countries etc, to inform writers about how these things work. That's a completely different thing and purpose from what we are talking about here.

Finished sorting Sandbox.Tropology Candidates.

I don't think we should keep the ones in the second category in the sandbox unless they are completely rewritten.

@SeptimusHeap I don't really see the formatting thing as an issue that can't be overcome though.

• Normal work page to briefly summarize what the book is, the framework it uses for analyzing tropes, and to list out the tropes that are featured in the book that we also have a parallel for
• Analysis for deeper discussion on the framework, comparisons, etc
• Recap to summarize in more detail the entire work

You're right that the current pages as is don't fit well with our system, but it's not impossible. We have all of these subpage types, might as well make use of them

Edited by amathieu13 on Oct 8th 2022 at 1:29:41 PM

Everything in the second category in the sandbox either needs to be cut for violating two of our policies or completely rewritten. I don't see a compelling reason not to cut them right away and personally can't invest into a rewrite, though they can be sandboxed for a future effort. Coincidentally, cutting/rewriting would resolve the OP question since there would be nothing to move.

Well, I think that moving them to a dedicated namespace is a much more useful solution. We can make new namespaces for things that don't fit into other namespaces, instead of shoehorning and then cutting on technicalities.

My first question would be why we need these articles at all. The red flag for me is the reproduction of large portions of the content. That is not what TV Tropes is supposed to be used for. Regardless of copyright or plagiarism considerations, we should be sending people to the original works out of courtesy.

Speaking very broadly, "original writing" — that is, content generated by TV Tropes users that is not a trope or useful note and does not describe or relate to a work or creator — goes in Just for Fun unless it is big enough to get its own namespace, like the Pantheons.

Reproducing someone else's content in our own articles doesn't have a precedent, other than Evil Overlord List, which sits in Main. This is obviously not an ideal place for it because Main is not for original writing; it's for tropes and indexes.

Septimus' idea of a Tropology namespace is reasonable if we want to keep this content, but Tropology should itself be a subcategory of Just for Fun. The alternative is to cut all of the articles but link to the original works in an index such as Books on Trope.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 8th 2022 at 3:51:23 PM

it's easier because it requires less work to implement and you wouldn't have to change the pages as they're written, but I think the namespace creation goes against a lot of the ethos of the site. we would be creating an entirely new namespace just to capture a about 20 or so works that are a genre of books because they don't fit neatly with what the main purpose of the site is. I don't think the solution is to create namespaces for such niches (and indeed the current movement towards deprecation of namespaces seems to be along the same lines). That feels more like a shoehorn with a work around then troping the tropes discussed in these works.

i agree with Fighteer that these pages don't need to exist and wouldn't be against a cut. But The Hero with a Thousand Faces is already doing what I'm suggesting (though it needs work), so I think it's very viable option

Edited by amathieu13 on Oct 8th 2022 at 4:57:56 AM